Actalent Labor Market and Economy Report: A Look at Trends in September 2025

Executive Summary

Navigating Labor Market Trends in the Absence of Federal Data

At the time of this report’s publication, the U.S. federal government is shut down, and only essential operations are running within unfunded departments and agencies. As a result, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) has paused updates to its website and data releases until government operations resume.

Actalent’s Labor Market and Economy Reports rely on monthly employment data from the BLS. Because the duration of the shutdown (and the timeline for data updates once operations resume) is unknown, this month’s report focuses solely on industry trends.

While layoffs and quits data were released prior to the shutdown, the following metrics have not been updated by the BLS and are therefore not included in this report: employment levels, labor force participation rate, unemployment rate, average hourly earnings, consumer price index and real average hourly earnings.

September Labor Market

Although September employment figures were not available at the time of this report’s publication, labor market conditions likely continued recent trends: slower hiring activity driven by ongoing economic and political uncertainty, yet persistent competition for qualified STEM talent.

According to Lightcast, U.S. job postings from non-staffing employers declined by 8% over the last three months (July to September), with decreases observed across all industries except transportation and warehousing, which saw a 4% increase. By occupation group, postings fell across the board except for business and financial operations (+3%) and architecture and engineering (+2%).